Interest in a website like trip advisor but for HK services, shops, restaurants?

I had always thought Asia Expat allows users to offer advice freely but apparently we are only allowed to provide positive feedback on any service, school, company, store, etc out of fear of slander or abuse by those who wish to profit from negative feedback. This means we don't get real references as you only get positive feedback which could be someone plugging their own business. Is anyone interested in a trip advisor or amazon style site which allows users to provide feedback (positive and negative) on their experience thereby assisting other consumers to make informed decisions and not waste money? Thinking to start one as could be useful for the businesses themselves to evaluate how they are doing.

Actually if someone starts a thread recommending something we assume its a self promotion and delete it.


If someone responds to a thread without identifying themselves - and they appear to be spamming... we will check their history... usually if someone is self-promoting in this way they do it many times... we would ban them.


Thus if you see a recommendation for something it is most likely to be genuine.



At the end of the day we are not trying to be an ombudsman - we want the forums to be used in a positive way.




I think it would be a great idea if someone were to launch a website that allows negative comments about businesses that provide substandard services... I would however be concerned about law suits ... also convincing advertisers to join would likely present problems...

Thanks for the feedback. Is interesting.


Had thought about the potential legal issues but there must be a way around it as tripadvisor does it as do many many other websites. I believe that the websites are recognized to be impartial forums for users to express their opinions and do not represent the opinion of the website itself. Otherwise how can anybody provide any feedback on anything if they are not allowed to provide criticism or even venture an opinion? As the famous quote goes, "I may not like your opinion but i defend your right to have one." or something like that. I also don't always agree with people's opinions on these sites but at least you are entitled to say so and as more users log on it becomes obvious which side has the public's opinion. But please tell me if I'm wrong and this is not an interesting idea as the point of the project is to value opinions both positive and negative.

Hoteliers to take their revenge on TripAdvisor's critiques in court


http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/hoteliers-to-take-their-revenge-on-tripadvisors-critiques-in-court-2076417.html



Not sure how that will play out... but from our standpoint, our business plan (unlike Trip Advisors) is not based on providing reviews... so we would not want to jeopardize what has proven a successful formula by getting into potentially litigious activities... (expensive lawyers do not turn me on....


Also - its important to keep in mind - if you allow negative comments about a company - they will NOT be very happy to see their banner appear next to those comments...


And unlike print which goes into the bin... online comments are like nuclear radiation... they stick around for many years...



I have to keep all of this in mind when monitoring these forums... because if I make the wrong mistake I might end up scavenging in the McDonald's dumpster for still warm, half eaten burgers for dinner...

Yes but there must be some risk reward ratio...the co-founder is now worth US$260 million and the site is the largest travel site in the world with over 40 million users a month. They are making money somehow methinks.